The Arab legacy of hate
By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
web posted December 17, 2001
One of the reasons why it is so difficult for the average American
to relate to Arabs and to Palestinians in particular is the level of
hatred that they bear against Israel and Jews in general. Many
American Christians see the restoration of Israel as one of the
great miracles of the 20th century, a fulfillment of Biblical
prophecy, especially since it took place on the heels of the Nazi
holocaust in Europe. And therefore they see the hatred of Israel
by Palestinians and Arabs as not only anti-Biblical but anti-
Christian.
But from a merely psychological viewpoint, such hatred is also
pathological and unhealthy. We all know that people consumed
by hatred cannot lead normal lives because they are driven by an
emotion that not only creates gut-eating inner stress, but leads to
the kind of terrorist acts that took place on September 11th
against America and more recently against Israel.
Arab opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine goes back
quite a ways. In the years of early immigration before the 1948
war, Jews bought land from Arabs and made it bloom. Since
Palestine was a British mandate at that time, all transfers of land
from Arabs to Jews were normal real estate transactions. Jews
were not stealing anybody's land. Despite the legality of all of
this, there were anti-Jewish riots in Palestine that resulted in
many Jews being slaughtered.
But the Zionist movement gained strength in the 1930s when
Hitler took control of Germany and launched his campaign of
persecution and terror against Germany's Jewish citizens. Many
Jews, reading the handwriting on the wall, emigrated to Palestine.
The whole Zionist idea was to provide Jews with a haven from
persecution, which they could call their own.
During the war against Hitler, the Arabs were pro-Nazi, whereas
Jewish settlers formed the Jewish Brigade to help the British fight
against the German Afrika Korps in North Africa. Yet, in an
attempt to appease the Arabs, the British put sharp restrictions
against any further immigration of Jews to Palestine.
After World War II, when the surviving Jews of Europe
examined the catastrophe they had lived through, they realized
that there was no possibility of returning to the way things were
before the war. Hundreds of Jewish communities had been
destroyed. There was no place for them to return to. And so,
by the thousands they headed to Palestine. Others headed to
North America and elsewhere, but the majority, renewed in their
determination to rebuild Jewish life, went to the land that held
that promise. The language of the Jews in Palestine was their
ancient language of the Bible, Hebrew. In fact, the revival of
Hebrew was another miracle in the restoration of the Jewish
commonwealth.
In other words, the survivors did not linger in the refugee camps
any longer than they had to. They were anxious to resume
constructive lives in which they could create new families and
raise new children.
Meanwhile, in Palestine, as the Jewish population increased, so
did Arab opposition. The Arabs had little sympathy with the
plight of Jews after the holocaust. However, it should be
acknowledged that many ordinary Arabs worked with Jews
from the beginning of settlement to today. But it was the Islamic
religious and political leadership that harbored the greatest hatred
against the Jews.
When in 1948 the United Nations voted in favor of a partition
plan to divide Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states,
Arab leaders rejected it. And so, when the British finally
departed from Palestine, leaders of the Jewish community
declared the restoration of Israel as a sovereign state, thus
fulfilling a dream two thousand years old. Christians around the
world realized that what they were witnessing in their lifetime was
a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.
No sooner was the State of Israel founded, than Arab armies
from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded the
infant state in the determination to crush it and drive the Jews into
the sea. But another miracle took place, and Israel was able to
defeat the Arab armies and add more territory to their small
state. Jordan held on to East Jerusalem and most of the West
Bank, which was mainly populated by Arabs, and Egypt
annexed the Gaza Strip.
The Arabs who fled Palestine during the war were settled in
refugee camps awaiting some future event that would permit
them to return to their homes. The event they were told to wait
for was the destruction of Israel in which the Jews would either
be exterminated or forced out of the land to somewhere else.
And they led their children to believe that their lives could not be
improved until Arabs were victorious over the Jews.
Meanwhile, despite the Arab boycott and nonrecognition, the
Jewish state grew in population and industry. Several million
Jews migrated to Israel, mainly from Arab countries where they
were persecuted. Also, when Russian Jews were permitted to
leave the communist paradise, many of them headed to Israel.
In the Six Day War in 1967, Israel again defeated the armies of
Egypt, Syria and Jordan, reoccupied the Gaza Strip, and
conquered the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West
Bank, and East Jerusalem. For the first time in 2000 years, the
Jews had complete control of their ancient capital and the ancient
provinces of Samaria and Judea.
In 1973, Egypt launched a surprise attack against Israel on Yom
Kippur in an attempt to regain the Sinai. Although Israel was
able to fend off the attack, the war led to peace negotiations
between Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin,
and the return of the Sinai to Egypt.
Meanwhile, during all of those years, Israel was regularly
attacked by Palestinian terrorists whose goal it was to destroy
the Jewish state. The chief organizer of this terrorism was none
other than Yasser Arafat, who organized the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) with the help of the Soviet Union. As of
today, the goal of the PLO is still the destruction of Israel, and
their chosen method of combat is terrorism.
During all of this time, the movement to destroy Israel has been
fueled by a force of hatred maintained at the highest level by
unrelenting propaganda and incitement. Just as the previous
attacks against Israel have failed, the present attack will also fail.
But the hatred will hardly go away. The Arab Islamic leadership
will sustain it because hatred and perpetual war have become
their way of life.
It is time for American leadership to realize that Israel must be
permitted to do to Palestinian terrorists what the U.S. is now
doing to their Taliban brothers in Afghanistan. There can be no
Palestinian autonomous entity as long as it harbors the kind of
terrorists who are committing murder and mayhem against
innocent Israeli men, women and children on buses, in
restaurants, in shopping malls, and on the highways. No nation
should be expected to tolerate such a high level of bloody
murder of its people. And no nation can escape its duty to
protect its citizens by the only means that works: a war to the
finish against Palestinian terrorists.
Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of eight books on education,
including, "Alpha-Phonics: A Primer for Beginning Readers,"
"The Whole Language/OBE Fraud," and "Homeschooling: A
Parents Guide to Teaching Children." These books are available
on Amazon.com.
Enter Stage Right - http://www.enterstageright.com